He was singing a different tune, however, after the three of them had wriggled between one aphid’s legs and positioned themselves to dangling from its underside. The line of aphids was getting very close to the gate now, but Henderson couldn’t keep himself from getting his two cents in.
“These things totally smell like butt,” he said. “Once we get back to Kettle Hollow, I’m going to have to burn these clothes. I’ll never get the stink out.”
“And yet it still smells better than your gym shirt,” Jesse whispered.
“Shh!” Laura said. “Not so loud. One of the guards might hear you.”
As if on cue, one of the ant-men made a chittering noise and started moving towards their particular insect. Jesse started murmuring curse words quietly to himself.
“They’re going to find us,” he whispered. “This was a stupid idea!”
“It was your idea!” Henderson said.
“And it was a stupid one,” Jesse said. “You two are the leaders. You’re supposed to tell me when my ideas are stupid.”
“Hey, I’m not the leader,” Henderson said. “Blame that on Laura!”
“Who said I was the leader? Both of you just shut up or it will find us.”
The guard came up around the outside of the giant bug, but Jesse noticed something about the way the ant creature was moving. “I don’t think it can actually hear us,” he said.
Laura looked for a moment like she was going to freak out at how loudly he said, but as the seconds passed, she and Henderson realized he was correct. From their current position they couldn’t see much more than the ant creature’s lower four legs, but it hadn’t moved or reacted at all to Jesse’s voice.
“Do ants even have ears?” Henderson asked.
“I don’t think normal ants do, but these guys definitely don’t,” Jesse said.
“Then why is it investigating like it thinks something’s wrong?” Laura asked.
They didn’t dare move as the ant creature walked alongside the insect, moving back and forth as if it were agitated by something but not sure what. Finally, Jesse thought he had an answer. “It’s the smell.”
“Jesse, enough,” Laura said. “Jokes about Henderson’s gym shirt are just getting old now.”
“No, I’m serious. I think that it can kind of detect we’re here. But it can’t be sure because these aphid things are that smelly.”
The ant continued to pace back and forth in an agitated fashion. It never looked under the belly of the giant insect, but neither did it appear to be giving up on the idea that something was wrong. The aphid kept moving, but the attentions of the ant guard were slowing it down and causing the ones behind it to bump into it, jostling the three of them and threatening to make them lose their precarious grip on the creature’s underbelly. If they didn’t figure something out, they would be discovered long before the aphid got them through the entrance to the city.
“You said they can’t hear,” Laura said. “Are you sure that’s true?”
“I mean, kind of,” Jesse said. “I don’t think they really hear. It’s more like they can sense vibrations. He’s probably not sensing the vibrations of us talking because it’s being hidden by the vibrations of the bug’s legs on the stone.”
“Then I think I’ve got an idea,” Laura said. Being careful to keep her feet and one hand braced against the bug’s scaly underside, she reached over to Jesse and started to unzip his backpack. He started to protest but stopped when she carefully, without letting anything else fall out, pulled out his math textbook.
“What are you doing?” Henderson said to her. He didn’t seem to realize he was still whispering, regardless of whether or not the ant guard could hear him.
“Creating vibrations, and doing it away from us,” Laura said. She hefted the textbook a couple of times in her hand, testing to see its weight, and then flung it like a really heavy frisbee out in a direction behind them, away from the current position of the guard. The throw was awkward from her upside-down angle, but the book flew far enough to hit one of the walls with a hefty thumping noise.
It worked far better than any of them could have imagined. At the sound, the ant ran off after it, leaving their aphid to go back on its path with no more interruptions. The ant that had been investigating them wasn’t the only one who went after the sound, either. Several other guards that they hadn’t seen came scurrying from various shadowed places and jumped on the math book with savage ferocity. It seemed that none of them were now paying any attention to the aphids as the bugs marched through the gate, including the one with its three intruders hanging from its underside.
Jesse stared back at the guards ripping his math book to shreds, then looked at Laura. “Do you think she’ll believe me?”
“Do I think who will believe what?” Laura asked.
“My math teacher. Do you think she’ll believe me when I tell her that ants ate my homework?”
Henderson snickered and Laura had to hold back a laugh of her own. It might have been easier to appreciate the humor if they weren’t riding on the underside of a giant insect on their way into a hostile nest of human-sized killer ants.
The inside of the structure had the kind of waxy, papery texture to the walls that Laura associated with a wasp’s nest, although the material looked like it might be more durable. At regular intervals along the walls there were concentrated patches of the glowing fungus, obviously grown there on purpose to provide light like torches in sconces in a medieval castle.
“Okay, so now we’re in,” Henderson said. “What are we supposed to do from here?”
“Well, first we’re probably going to have to ditch our ride,” Laura
